Hi Guys!

Just a Hello from me, I currently live with my husband and 3 kids in Nottingham and am fed up with the rat race. Full time work for no gain and no real quality of life.
I lived in Alberta from age 6 months to 4 years and again from age 16 to 18 and attended High School in Red Deer. I came back then for what seemed like the right reasons, but am older and trying to be wiser now.
My mum followed me back, but my Dad is still there, though has now moved to Saskatchewan....
My husband has visited once on holiday, whilst both my parents were still there.
We are considering the jump for the sake of the kids and our sanity.

We fancy both Red Deer as it's the known to me, but also wonder if Calgary may be more beneficial, for jobs and a faster pace of life!

Can anyone give a comparison and pros and cons of both?

Also have been looking at Job sites on the net and some mention 10 days as the normal annual leave, rising to 15 days after 5 years! Again do you really get so few holidays? I currently get 28 days and feel I could do with more!

Thanks

Jo

Hell yeah. But thankfully I dont really feel the need for more. the stress level and pace of life suits me I guess.

RE holiday entitlement: It's been done to death but have a look here for reasons: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=425688

Thanks for the replies, sorry to ask something that's already obviously been done to death!
So Holidays are missed, but not needed as life is stress free......
IainK - just looked at your pics of the River Trent, thankfully far different from Nottingham's version!

So is anyone out there able to offer any ifon re Calgary vs Red Deer??

Jo

You milage may vary. If I lived in Toronto with a 2h daily commute in slow moving trafic I would probably feel differently.

Welcome!

Piff-Poff may be your best source of info on Red Deer, as she lives there. I'd guess not many of us can compare the two, as we live in one or the other, but I'd think your presumption that Calgary is faster-paced may be true.

I'm sure there are more traffic jams here in Calgary though! The city has exceeded 1 million in population now, and as most of that is "single-family dwellings", the area it covers is huge! .... And probably every family has one/two cars on average.

It also may be true that there are more job openings here, but I know Red Deer is also crying out for bodies in all areas. I know a few folks who travel from Red Deer to Calgary to participate in activities that both my husband (field hockey) and I (singing) do.

The leave thing doesn't really bother us, though I do get 15 days rather than 10. There is a stat holiday almost every month, so lots of long weekends
Some folks who like to "go home" every year complain that it takes up all their leave, but I feel that is a matter of personal choice and circumstances.

Reasons why we like Red Deer:

1. It's small enough to find your way round relatively easy as a new comer.
2. It's large enough to support diverse industry and have all the benefits of a much larger city.
3. The public transport system in town is much better than anything I have experienced in the UK.
4. Lots of decent schools - with the French immersion route also available.
5. Lots of beautiful areas for walking.
6. Only 1.5 hours away from Calgary, Edmonton, 2hrs from the Rockies and Drumheller - you an see the Rockies from certain places within town on a clear day. The nearest beach is just 20 mins away.
7. No real rush hour - you can get from one end of town to the other in about 20 mins(even when it's been snowing!).
8. Although the house prices have risen dramatically in the past few years you can still get more for your money than in the major cities

Reasons we don't like Red Deer:

Hmmm - can't think of any - really, nothing

Oh!
Someone said on the radio that Red Deer could end up being bigger than Calgary and Edmonton - don't think we'd like that!

If you want more info just let me know!

Well we have lived in both. Calgary is big. We lived in the NW because OH family was there. Loved the area we lived in, very close to the Crowfoot centre so 2 supermarkets, numerous eaterys a cinema several doctors surgeries and recently a library. It was very frustrating at times just to pop out to get something, despite how close we lived to these places the journey could take forever (traffic lights everywhere) catch it at the wrong time of the day and honestly it could take an hour to get anywhere, but then again other times it was a breeze - I suppose you could say that about anywhere really.

OH worked downtown so the transit links were important to him - I know this caused frustration at times as if he left home just 5 minutes late he would not be able to park at the closest LRT station, therefore having to drive even further to find parking defeating the whole point of transit in my opinion. His commute home would take about 50 minutes door to door because of traffic once he got off the train. He was going into the office for 7am in order to be home by 4.30pm.

We didn't tend to go to other parts of the City much. Friends lived in the NE before they moved back to Oz. Personally I did not like this area of the City, the way the LRT fits in with the road is rather silly.

As for the south, traffic is bad if you have to work downtown. Macleod and Deerfoot are the major routes and they are consistantly backed up. Communities in the south are meant to be nice though, although cannot say from experience. In my experience those who live in the NW love the NW and dislike the SE and SW and vice-versa.

So as to Red Deer. Yes as Piff Poff says it is small, easy to find your way around etc etc. Can't say however at this point that we love it.
There appears (and I say appears as I would love to hear otherwise) to be little for youngsters to do in the winter months. In Calgary we had the YMCA and a preschool drop-in gym. Nothing like this in Red Deer and I have tried C.h.i.ps the Collicut Centre Red Deer Recreation etc etc.

In our experience the neighbourhoods are less than friendly. It could be the winter months, but even with the few nice days we've had and I've been outside with the kids on all possible occasions, the neighbours are not at all receptive. My advice to seriously research that neighbourhoods you would perhaps live in, older ones perhaps not the best places to meet same age group.

After 5 months we are finding, still, that the friendliest people in Red Deer are those that have moved here from elsewhere in Canada (usually Saskatchewan and NS).

Perhaps our experience with Red Deer has been slightly affected by the fact that we originally were meant to be building 'our dream home' in Blackfalds, but within 1 month of moving into this house that was meant to only be an interim one, the contracts were all cancelled on us as the developer couldn't meet the deadlines. The builders have since increase the cost of the house we were to build by $56,000 taking into an area that we can no longer afford. So here we are in a house that really doesn't suit our family and unable to move elsewhere because for some reason 2 storey houses are not built that often in Red Deer and those that go on the market are too high for us.
And to top it all we lost one of our dogs.

Oh well hope this has helped.